Over 200 Picasso paintings seized from retired electrician

A 71-year-old retired electrician is at the centre of a legal battle after coming forward with more than 200 hitherto unknown paintings by Pablo Picasso, French newspaper Libération reported on Monday.

© Succession Picasso 2010

Experts who have examined the collection have estimated it could be worth some 60 million euros, the paper reported.

The electrician, Pierre Le Guennec, wrote to Claude Picasso, the artist's son and the administrator of his estate, in a bid to get the canvases authenticated and the two finally met in September.

Le Guennec said he had worked installing alarm systems at a number of Picasso's residences, including a villa in Cannes in the south of France, during the last three years of Picasso's life. The artist died in 1973.

He said he had had been given the works as presents, either by Picasso's wife or the artist himself. The collection included 271 works, Libération reported.

Once experts had authenticated the works, however, Picasso's heirs filed a complaint alleging receipt of stolen goods.

Claude Picasso dismissed Le Guennec's claim that he could have received the paintings as gifts, telling Libération that his father would not have given such a quantity of works to anyone.

"That doesn't stand up," he insisted. "It was a part of his life.”

After Picasso's heirs filed the complaint in September, officers from the Central Office for the Fight against Traffic in Cultural Goods (OCBC) seized the works from the couple's home on the Côte d'Azur in south-east France.

Le Guennec himself was taken into custody, the paper reported, although it did not say whether he has since been released.

The haul ranges from notebooks to drawings and completed paintings, including nine cubist works which alone are worth some 40 million euros, according to experts.

Also in the collection was an water colour from Picasso's blue period, portraits of his first wife Olga, as well as a number of gouaches and lithographs, Libération reported.